Campaign Finance

May 03, 2018

Retweeting @realDonaldTrump isn’t my favorite thing to do, but sometimes duty calls. At 5:54 this morning, after Trump’s new lawyer, Rudy “It’s Guiliani Time” Guiliani went on Sean Hannity’s show “asserting that the president had reimbursed his personal lawyer for a $130,000 hush payment to a pornographic film actress — contradicting his client, the president,” Trump tweeted

Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are..... ...very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair...... (bold added.)

We’ll leave it to criminal prosecutors, history textbook writers and November voters to sort this out. What’s of interest to us is his glowing praise of “Arbitration” (capitalized for no apparent grammatical reason), which is not new. As we’ve noted before, Trump and his lawyer, Michael Cohen, have long used forced arbitration clauses to silence their accusers, which keeps them from bringing legal cases in open court before unbiased judges and juries. As the Associated Press reported during election season, “In his businesses and presidential campaign, Trump requires nearly everyone” to sign clauses where any dispute is subject to arbitration at the “sole discretion of Trump and others protected by the agreement,” and which are “binding during employment and ‘at all times thereafter.’”

And since becoming President, his Administration has been forcing arbitration on victims any way they can. (See the Center for Justice & Democracy’s running scorecard.)

The hypocrisy of this guy is one for the record books. While Trump clearly doesn’t like being held legally accountable in open court, he and/or his businesses have filed more than 1,900 civil cases over the past three decades. For example, Trump sued “Palm Beach County, Fla., because of the ‘malicious’ jet noise above Mar-a-Lago”: Bill Maher “after the comedian challenged Trump to prove he was not the spawn of an orangutan”; the Chicago Tribune “for $500 million because its architecture critic said Trump’s idea for the world’s tallest tower was silly”; “neighbors of the Trump National Doral Miami for vandalizing palm trees”; and “two business executives for using the name ‘Trump,’ even though their surname was also Trump.”

In 2009, Trump filed a defamation lawsuit seeking $2.5 billion in compensation and $2.5 billion in punitive damages after an author claimed Trump was a millionaire not a billionaire. (The case was thrown out). Then there was the time when “Miss Universe LP, partly owned by Trump, sued to confirm a $5 million arbitration award against Sheena Monnin, a former Miss Pennsylvania USA and Miss USA Pageant who called the pageant “fixed and called the organization ‘fraudulent, lacking in morals, inconsistent and in many ways trashy.’”

An April 2018 ProPublica investigation revealed, “Across the country, the Trump Organization is suing local governments, claiming it owes much less in property taxes than government assessors say because its properties are worth much less than they’ve been valued at. …At stake is millions of dollars that communities use to fund roads, schools and police departments.”

Over the opposition of lawyers for a company owned by President Donald J. Trump, State Supreme Court Judge Eileen Bransten ruled Thursday that a condominium on the Upper West Side could remove the bronze letters spelling out his name from its 46-story building.

In the letter, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said that if the condo made any effort to remove the Trump lettering, Mr. Trump would “commence appropriate legal proceedings to not only prevent such unauthorized action, but to also recover the significant amount of damages, costs and attorney’s fees.”

That was no small matter in the minds of many condo owners. Mr. Trump has a reputation as a vigorous if not always victorious plaintiff and defendant whose determination to drag out a court fight could cost a fortune.

Oh, there’s even more. In fact, this is just a taste of what’s to come in the Center for Justice & Democracy upcoming “Hypocrites of ‘Tort Reform’” 2018 edition. You’ll just have to stay tuned!

June 27, 2012

When the hyper-partisan, hyper-activist majority of the U.S. Supreme Court decided this week to invalidate summarily Montana’s 100-year-old campaign finance law which had restricted corporate spending, “James Bopp, the lead attorney arguing against Montana’s law, boasted to Mother Jones that the Supreme Court ruling was ‘a pretty dramatic door-slamming’ on the notion justices might have any second thoughts on the matter.” Even Justice Stephen Breyer, in his powerful dissent, noted that "it would be a waste of time to listen to arguments on the case after Citizens United, given the conservative majority’s clear opinion…” When it comes to the U.S. Supreme Court, this issue is done, done and done. (One good reason why this presidential election is so important.)

So who’s going to help us now? Let’s start with the “two-thirds supermajority votes in each house of Congress to propose and three-fourths of state legislatures to approve” a constitutional amendment. Great idea. Not happening.

More likely is tackling the transparency issue on which reasonable people from both parties might agree (even though both the Federal Election Commission and the IRS appear deadlocked over the issue). Congress has a bill called the DISCLOSE Act, but even in its stripped down form, it's going nowhere - so far. (One good reason why upcoming congressional elections are so important.) WritesTPM, “Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who joined with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in backing Montana’s anti-corruption law, said the ruling should spur Congress to pass the DISCLOSE Act, which would require greater transparency for big money donors. It was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate in 2010.”

Why it’s going nowhere - no surprise - is the heavy lobbying against it by the nation’s largest lobby group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who says “disclosure would ‘silence free speech.’” Yeah, well, we’ll see about that now that another state Attorney General is once again coming to the public’s rescue in the face of enormous corporate power (as they often do).

According to the New York Times, New York’s Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman has now “begun investigating contributions to tax-exempt groups that are heavily involved in political campaigns, focusing on a case involving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has been one of the largest outside groups seeking to influence recent elections but is not required to disclose its donors.” Writes the New York Times,

Mr. Schneiderman issued a wide-ranging subpoena on Tuesday to executives at a foundation affiliated with the chamber, seeking e-mails, bank records and other documents to determine whether the foundation illegally funneled $18 million to the chamber for political and lobbying activities, according to people with knowledge of the investigation. …

While the chamber claims roughly 300,000 members, its political and lobbying activities are largely financed by a much smaller group of corporations, which can donate unlimited amounts to the chamber for issue ads against candidates without having to disclose the contributions publicly. During 2008, close to half of the chamber’s $140 million in contributions came from just 45 donors, often coinciding with lobbying or political campaigns of concern to the companies giving the money.

Got a News Tip?

All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the authors only. Any disputes should be addressed to the authors or commentators. The Pop Tort invites comment to further the debate on issues addressed, but we reserve the right to deny or remove any post or comment.